What Is Martial Arts?
Kang Mu-jin of Sungmuryeon.
The youngest executive of the Sungmuryeon Guild — and a Mount Hua Sect Martial Arts Awakener, one wing of the famed Gupa-ilbang, the alliance of the Nine Great Sects and the One Union.
A young genius whom every hunter of his generation looked up to, longed to be, and secretly envied.
Among all the promising up-and-comers who had turned hunter in the same season as Kang Mu-jin, not a single one ever stood on ground equal to his.
At most, Namgung Ye-rin of the Aegis Guild had once been floated as a rival from their own generation — and as if such a hasty verdict were laughable, Kang Mu-jin vaulted several stages at a single bound to a far higher place.
The prevailing assessment: had Kang Mu-jin been born a mere ten years earlier — or at the very least awakened a little sooner — he would already stand shoulder to shoulder with the 1st-Generation Hunters.
A future on an entirely different stage: a royal road, plain and simple. A life where even running at an ordinary pace, without ever bothering to overtake anyone, left those ahead falling behind.
He raced ahead of everyone else, and having awakened the martial arts of the illustrious Mount Hua Sect, decline wasn't even a possibility.
A successful life.
A successful career.
A successful hunter.
So everyone said.
But Kang Mu-jin knows. He knows that the wellspring of his awakened martial arts traces back to a single failure of a man.
"What is martial arts?"
The world, when it sorts martial arts awakeners into categories at all, files them under sects — "Mount Hua," "Wudang," and the rest.
Just as Kang Mu-jin is called a Mount Hua martial arts awakener, even those who awakened slightly different arts are lumped together under one sect's name.
But that is nothing more than a rough taxonomy drawn up by people who are not awakeners themselves — people who cannot know that even among those who trained the same sect's same arts, every awakener, and every art, differs in some subtle way.
Martial arts awakeners dream.
Those short on talent dream only once, in the instant of their awakening. But those hailed as geniuses dream again and again, the greater their talent grows — as if the stronger the gift, the more unbreakable the connection becomes.
Dreams of a warrior who must once have existed in some other world — a warrior who honed and refined the very arts they awakened.
And so Kang Mu-jin dreamed, too. Once, ten times, a hundred times over.
"What is martial arts?"
An old man, questioning the empty air as he stared up a sheer, savagely hewn cliff.
He had been the highest of Mount Hua's elders, a warrior held in reverence, a sage whose name rang out for a bearing as aloof as an immortal's.
He questioned and answered alone, like a hermit secluded deep in the mountains — but there is no sage here, and the old man is no seeker of the Dao.
He is a man who severed every tie to his sect, hid himself in the depths of the range, and did nothing but despair, and break, and go mad, repeating a meaningless question without end.
At times he wails as his gaunt fists smash everything around him to pieces; at times he clings to the cliff face with hands that once held a sword and weeps aloud.
Shabbily aged, the old man is nothing more than a straggler defeated by despair.
His heart crushed into emptiness — and yet what the old man truly gazes upon is not the cliff.
"What is the pinnacle of martial arts?"
What is projected through that cliff.
A shadow walking upon the empty air, the hem of black dragon robes streaming, dyed red with nothing but the blood of enemies.
Despair made manifest — the living avatar of the martial arts carried to their extreme.
It had shattered his heart and cast him down among the beaten. So it would remain, forever — a heavy shadow draped across the old man's chest.
What good was martial arts, in the end? What good was being a warrior at all?
How could a man despair like this — tearing himself apart with his own two hands?
Ever since those dreams began repeating, a thirst had taken root in Kang Mu-jin, one that no amount of passing time could ever quench.
And — by what means, no one could say — a nameless organization had learned of that thirst and come to approach him.
What they offered was an absurd proposal, the kind anyone standing where Kang Mu-jin stood would have laughed out of the room.
And yet.
A royal-road future. A successful life. A position promising fame and power.
More than any of that—
Kang Mu-jin chose to be honest with his thirst.
Bonjwa — the Blood Demon, Cheon Yujin.
The moment I reached for the macaron before those three seconds ran out, Namgung Ye-rin — who had crept up on me from God knows where — pounced and seized me in a sneak attack.
How could this be? That I, Bonjwa, ever cool and ever composed, would commit such a bitter blunder.
If I hadn't tried to snatch the macaron off the floor, I would never have been caught this easily!
Which means this is in no way Bonjwa's fault — the blame lies squarely with the three-second rule, and its false promise that anything dropped may righteously be picked back up…!
"I-I'm going…! Lemme go…!"
"No, Yujin. I told you, that area's off-limits! What is with this kid…?"
"Lemme goooooo……!"
Namgung Ye-rin was holding me with one hand — lightly, idly, as if carrying a kitten. And yet somehow she was strong enough that I couldn't budge an inch.
After flailing for a good long while, I finally drained the last of my stamina and went limp.
I hate this wretched body…!
Held fast in Namgung Ye-rin's grip, I lifted my head and stared at the violet rift wavering ominously in the air.
I don't know what lies beyond it. I don't know why looking at it makes my chest ache with longing. Which is exactly why I have to go and find out.
This time it isn't the body's instinct doing the driving — it's my mind, whipping this body forward. I was still racking my brains over how to slip free of Namgung Ye-rin's grip in this accursed body when—
Tiri-ri— Namgung Ye-rin's smartwatch rang out. She clicked her tongue once and tapped the screen.
"Yujin, hold still for just one second. …Hello? What is it?"
"Hey, Namgung! Where are you right now?!"
"What, out of nowhere? I literally just watched you take over my shift a minute ago…"
"It's a Class-1 emergency! We need backup. Fuck — Kang Mu-jin… Sungmuryeon's gone insane! They're attacking everyone indiscriminately—"
The desperate voice crackling through the smartwatch cut off without warning.
"What the…"
Namgung Ye-rin stared, hollow-eyed, at the smartwatch whose call had just died.
Thanks to being held right next to the thing, I had heard the whole call too. Static, roaring noise, and screaming had all bled through the line, so I'd caught only fragments — but the fragments were enough.
Emergency. Sungmuryeon. Indiscriminate attack.
"Ooooh…!"
More than enough to piece together what kind of situation this was. And I marveled.
Sungmuryeon. From the very first time I'd seen the name online, I'd thought it sounded like something out of Murim — and these people… were splendid saplings of Murim, already pickled through to the brain in proper Murim tradition!
Just like how, whenever a tournament was held, a master dispatched by some suspicious organization would inevitably infiltrate under a false identity and wreck the proceedings — at the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly, the inter-sect tournaments, a sect's founding ceremony, even the birthday party thrown for the headmaster of some neighborhood martial arts hall.
The moment any event was held, a spy, an assassin, a traitor — someone — was guaranteed to appear and flip the banquet table.
Important occasions, you see, exist precisely so they can be overturned. Such is the 'common sense' of Murim…!
Yes. THIS… this is true wuxia!
As I trembled there, head bowed, chuckling to myself in deep satisfaction, Namgung Ye-rin pulled me into a crushing hug.
"It's okay. You don't have to be scared. Unnie will take you somewhere safe, so first we just need to get out of here—"
Namgung Ye-rin's expression froze mid-sentence, going cold.
A group was closing in, footsteps heavy as hammer blows.
Hunters, dressed to a man in matching coats — modern material cut to look like the war-dress of ancient China.
Sungmuryeon.
"We came to seal the approach route, but what a windfall. That's Namgung Ye-rin of Aegis."
"Can we actually pull that off? Honestly, I'm not confident."
"There's a kid right beside her, isn't there? And there are four of us. Pin the kid down apart from her, and it's over."
Sparks flew from Namgung Ye-rin's eyes.
Tap. My body, held aloft in her hand, settled onto the ground. By the time she set me down, Namgung Ye-rin had already equipped a pair of colossal gauntlets, each nearly three times the size of her hand.
"Yujin. When Unnie gives the signal, run back the way we came. You can do that, right? It's okay — Unnie will hold them off, I promise. So don't you worry about this unnie, just…… Yujin? Huh? No answer…"
Skedaddle-skedaddle-skedaddle.
I became the wind.
"I d-did tell you to run, but— no, th-that's— at least hesitate a little first, or— nooooo……!!!"
KA-KRAAANG! The boom of steel striking steel rolled out from somewhere far behind, but I just ran.
I think Namgung Ye-rin shouted something — but to Bonjwa, who had been running from the instant her hand opened, such details hardly matter…!
"Haaah, huff, huff……!"
I ran until the stamina of this glacially slow body ran bone-dry, and by then the sounds of battle had faded from hearing entirely. Clutching my knees, I desperately gulped down air.
The direction I'd run was not back the way I'd come, but a route leading deeper into the restricted zone.
Dangerous, yes. But under any ordinary circumstance I could never have gotten within a mile of the Gate — which meant that for me, this was a golden opportunity.
I had no idea whether this frail body could actually see it through, but—
Bonjwa has smashed through asura fields far worse than this more times than I can count, and in my entire life I have never once turned tail when crisis and opportunity stood side by side before me!
…And a strategic retreat is not running away!
"But… huff… a weapon… I need… haaah…"
The real fight might be about to begin. And seeing as even the external art of the Fierce Tiger Fist had proved useless, I had to give up on accomplishing anything with this body alone.
At the very least, with a weapon in hand, I could fall back on Bonjwa's superior technique: pick out the vital points, and drop the enemy where he stood.
Back in my Murim days I'd rarely stooped to trifling little weapons like these, but…
Moving with care, I searched my surroundings — and as if a skirmish had swept through nearby, I found a sword lying where it had been dropped and abandoned.
"U-uuu…"
There were more than a few bloodstains on it, and this cowardly body of mine was quivering like a leaf — but regardless.
A blade tracing one sleek, unbroken line.
My homeland, grown mighty on the technology of this otherworld, had become an impressive place in all sorts of ways.
Named blades that in Murim would have passed into legend — meteoric-iron swords, treasured blades forged of ten-thousand-year cold iron — lay scattered around here like so much common hardware.
I took the sword's hilt in my hand and smiled a satisfied smile.
If you are to become the cherished blade of Bonjwa, the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin, then you must bear a name worthy of that station…!
Bonjwa is first under heaven at naming things as well.
Picturing the dear face of Ma-noe — who, every single time Bonjwa conferred a name, would burst into heaving sobs and leap to his feet in a standing ovation — I tightened my grip on the hilt.
My new cherished blade.
From this moment on, your name is—
"Weep, O Hellblood Demon Blade…!"
Vmmm-oooom…!
As if in answer to Bonjwa's call, the Hellblood Demon Blade began to cry!
With power surging up through me, Bonjwa drew the Hellblood Demon Blade — the sword that would dye this world red!
"Hnngh… khh… khh…!"
…Huh?
"Hnnnnnnnngh…! Kehk!"
Tremble, tremble, tremble.
The sword had not budged so much as a hair's width.
The one weeping was not the Hellblood Demon Blade. It was my arm.
…
I turned away.
A true blade… chooses its master.
And Bonjwa, naturally, possesses a caliber fully befitting such a master. But having witnessed the Hellblood Demon Blade's exceptional devotion to its former owner, I have decided, in my boundless grace, to step aside…!
"…Goodbye, Hellblood Demon Blade."
Could I ever truly keep up, I wonder… with the speed of a world without you—
…Sniff.